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How it can be allowed that two of the most used messaging apps inn the world fall at the same time? The regulators in many countries that allowed the purchase

How it can be allowed that two of the most used messaging apps inn the world fall at the same time? The regulators in many countries that allowed the purchase failed to protect customers and competition and helped to create a more fragile world prone to systemic disruptions.

julianlam 5y ago
Regulators don't _see_ every single facet of an acquisition. I'd bet they didn't even think about a scenario like this. Their concerns were probably more along the lines of anti-monopoly, preservation of competition, etc. That said, who wants to go back to ICQ?
trutannus 5y ago
While this is a massive inconvenience, I don't see how messaging apps like this are a government problem if they go offline. These are not state run businesses.
- Sebb767 5y ago
  Imagine the SWIFT network (handles all bank transfers) going down. _Technically_, it's a private company, but it can wreck havoc on a country. Similarly, these messaging services are quite essential for some people and this dependency is only going to become stronger. So it can absolutely make sense for a country to have a fallback.
  - trutannus 5y ago
    Banking and the ability to use Facebook messenger are not even remotely close to the same thing. SMS services are still alive, so are phone and other actually critical services. Messenger is nice, but really, outside of being able to send stickers and whatnot (which is nice) this isn't critical infrastructure.
    - manquer 5y ago
      Not in the U.S. Perhaps, However many services even government ones depends on WhatsApp business accounts to provide essential services. A ton of apps also use fb login as their only or primary authentication mechanism some of them would definitely be essential services. Maybe building on Facebook was not best idea for these apps , but essential services would have been impacted nonetheless.
      - trutannus 5y ago
        > Not in the U.S. Perhaps Why the assumption that I'm American?
        manquer 5y ago
        It was not specific to you. Messenger is a bit more popular than WhatsApp in the U.S. compared to rest of the world where WhatsApp is sometimes defacto replacement for SMS (phone number vs Facebook account I guess). I have seen WhatsApp or telegram logos on billboards or printed media as support channels but never really messenger anywhere. I have not seen WhatsApp in the U.S. commonly as a support channel yet . Since you mentioned messenger I qualified U.S. out as perhaps a different market
        trutannus 5y ago
        I see what you're saying. I still don't think there's a case to be made here for letting the government control these services to ensure uptime. The argument instead should be stop using Facebook properties for business, that's not what they're for. The argument is essentially that these organizations have gotten so successful that they need to hand control over their infrastructure to the state, since the state will manage it better. You might not be making this argument, but some in this thread clearly are when they ask "how can this be allowed to happen". I can't think of a single system managed by the government which actually is run in a way that's as good as Facebook's networks. Consider it this way: Facebook has crashed less in the past 10 years than the stock market. That should give people thinking of state control for reliability something to think about.
wolverine876 5y ago
> two of the most used messaging apps inn the world fall at the same time Text messaging works fine. There is no serious disruption of public service.

julianlam 5y ago

Regulators don't _see_ every single facet of an acquisition. I'd bet they didn't even think about a scenario like this. Their concerns were probably more along the lines of anti-monopoly, preservation of competition, etc. That said, who wants to go back to ICQ?

trutannus 5y ago

While this is a massive inconvenience, I don't see how messaging apps like this are a government problem if they go offline. These are not state run businesses.

Sebb767 5y ago
Imagine the SWIFT network (handles all bank transfers) going down. _Technically_, it's a private company, but it can wreck havoc on a country. Similarly, these messaging services are quite essential for some people and this dependency is only going to become stronger. So it can absolutely make sense for a country to have a fallback.
- trutannus 5y ago
  Banking and the ability to use Facebook messenger are not even remotely close to the same thing. SMS services are still alive, so are phone and other actually critical services. Messenger is nice, but really, outside of being able to send stickers and whatnot (which is nice) this isn't critical infrastructure.
  - manquer 5y ago
    Not in the U.S. Perhaps, However many services even government ones depends on WhatsApp business accounts to provide essential services. A ton of apps also use fb login as their only or primary authentication mechanism some of them would definitely be essential services. Maybe building on Facebook was not best idea for these apps , but essential services would have been impacted nonetheless.
    - trutannus 5y ago
      > Not in the U.S. Perhaps Why the assumption that I'm American?
      - manquer 5y ago
        It was not specific to you. Messenger is a bit more popular than WhatsApp in the U.S. compared to rest of the world where WhatsApp is sometimes defacto replacement for SMS (phone number vs Facebook account I guess). I have seen WhatsApp or telegram logos on billboards or printed media as support channels but never really messenger anywhere. I have not seen WhatsApp in the U.S. commonly as a support channel yet . Since you mentioned messenger I qualified U.S. out as perhaps a different market
        trutannus 5y ago
        I see what you're saying. I still don't think there's a case to be made here for letting the government control these services to ensure uptime. The argument instead should be stop using Facebook properties for business, that's not what they're for. The argument is essentially that these organizations have gotten so successful that they need to hand control over their infrastructure to the state, since the state will manage it better. You might not be making this argument, but some in this thread clearly are when they ask "how can this be allowed to happen". I can't think of a single system managed by the government which actually is run in a way that's as good as Facebook's networks. Consider it this way: Facebook has crashed less in the past 10 years than the stock market. That should give people thinking of state control for reliability something to think about.

wolverine876 5y ago

> two of the most used messaging apps inn the world fall at the same time Text messaging works fine. There is no serious disruption of public service.